Welcome to The Teachers' Lounge! We invite you to warm up with a cup of tea and some good conversation. Join us as we explore topics in early childhood, discuss challenges facing parents and educators of young children and share new activities!

In my last post, I mentioned some of the great new books that were published during 2012. This past week, I was thrilled to hear the winners of the youth literature awards for the past year. The book that won the Caldecott Medal (for best picture book of the year) was a wonderful book called, "This is Not My Hat" by Jon Klassen. I happened to already own a copy of this book and I have used it with groups of children. In fact, last week I shared it with a kindergarten class, two first grade classes, and a second grade class. The magic of this volume is that the story allows the reader or listener to determine the ending of the story. A small fish steals a hat from a large fish and doesn't think he is going to get caught. However, at the end of the story the large fish has his hat back. What happened in the tall, tall plants is up to the reader to determine.The groups of children who heard the story participated in a wonderful discussion about how inappropriate it is to take things that do not belong to them. Even if a person determines that he is better suited for the item. Jon Klassen's illustrations are magical in this book. In fact, he also won a Caldecott Honor award this year for illustrating another book called, "Extra Yarn." I am so grateful that we have such talented individuals in the world who provide great resources for children. Do yourself a favor very soon and pick up, "This is Not My Hat."